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New Textbook is Important Weed Biocontrol Tool / July 9, 2008 / News
from the USDA Agricultural Research Service

ARS researcher Ted
Center, co-author of new textbook on biocontrol, is searching for biological
controls to weeds like melaleuca (shown here) and water hyacinth (below), a
pretty but invasive weed that is choking waterways in many countries including
the U.S. Click the image for more information about it.

New Textbook is Important Weed Biocontrol
Tool

An Agricultural Research Service
(ARS) expert on invasive weeds like water hyacinth and melaleuca has
co-authored a new textbook to help university students and others learn about
biological control and other strategies for controlling weeds.

The new textbook, "Control of Pests and Weeds by Natural Enemies: An
Introduction to Biological Control," was co-authored by
Ted
Center, director of the ARS Invasive Plant Research Laboratory (IPRL)
in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Water hyacinth has infested waters in many tropical and subtropical
parts of the Americas, Asia, Australia and Africa. It clogs up the waterways
and hampers boating and fishing, water supply, flood control, mosquito control,
fisheries and wildlife management, as well as damaging irrigation systems used
to grow food.

Center has had success with hyacinth-eating biological control insects
from South America. These insects have been effective complements to chemical
control methods, because they go where sprays can't reach. He is now searching
for other prospective biological controls, which must go through quarantine at
IPRL and be carefully tested--to make sure they eat only the right
weeds--before they may be released into the environment.

Center and his colleagues are also fighting melaleuca, a
fast-spreading invasive Australian tree that's threatening survival of the
Florida Everglades, the largest
subtropical wilderness in the United States.

The new textbook, published by
Blackwell Publishing Ltd.,
includes water hyacinth and many other invasive weeds--both aquatic and
terrestrial--detailing their history, attributes, and methods to eliminate or
control them. It is a valuable reference book for biocontrol professionals,
agriculturalists, wildlife biologists and others.

Co-authoring the book with Center are the book's lead author, Roy G.
Van Driesche of the University of
Massachusetts-Amherst, and Mark S. Hoddle of the
University of California-Riverside. Van
Driesche and Hoddle wrote the chapters pertaining to insect biological control,
while Center wrote the chapters dealing specifically with weed biological
control. All three authors contributed to chapters relating to themes common to
both insects and weeds.